Apple's Aperture 3 brings 200 new features, including Faces, Places
Apple on Tuesday released the next major update to its photo editing and management software, with Aperture 3 sporting over 200 new features, including Faces, Places and Brushes for $199 new, or $99 to upgrade.
Expanding on the Faces and Places features first introduced in iPhoto '09, Aperture 3 is said to make it easier and faster for users to organize large photo libraries. An exhaustive list of the many new features is available on Apple's Web site.
"Millions of people love using iPhoto to organize, edit and share their digital photos," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Aperture 3 is designed for both professionals who edit and manage massive libraries of photos and iPhoto users who want to take their photos further with easy-to-use tools such as Brushes and Adjustment Presets."
Aperture 3 introduces new tools to refine photos, including Brushes for painting image adjustments onto parts of a photo, and Adjustment Presets for applying professional photo effects with just one click. New slideshows let users share their work by weaving together photos, audio, text and HD video.
"Aperture 3 gets it right," said National Geographic photographer, Jim Richardson. "The image editing tools are exactly what I have been asking for, they're so easy to use and give me a level of control that I never even thought possible."
The new software carries a suggested retail price of $199, while the upgrade price runs $99. A 30-day trial is also available. Aperture 3 runs as a 64-bit application on Mac OS X Snow Leopard on Macs with Intel Core 2 Duo processors.
"I chose Aperture because it was the most powerful archiving application around, but it's now an unbelievable imaging tool as well," said Bill Frakes, Sports Illustrated staff photographer. "I am beyond impressed with the massive changes made in Aperture 3."
The latest version allows users to organize large photo libraries with even more flexibility using Projects and the new Faces and Places. Faces uses face detection and recognition to find and organize photos by the people in them. Faces can be viewed across an entire photo library or view just the faces that appear in selected projects. In a new view that speeds up the organization process, Aperture 3 displays faces that have been detected but haven't yet been named.
Places allows users to explore photos based on where they were taken, and like in iPhoto, Places automatically reverse geocodes GPS data into user-friendly locations. In Aperture 3, locations can be assigned by dragging-and-dropping photos onto a map or by using location information from GPS enabled cameras, tracking devices or iPhone photos.
The new Brushes feature allows users to add professional touches to photos by simply painting effects onto the image. Aperture 3 includes 15 Quick Brushes that perform the most popular tasks like Dodge, Burn, Polarize and Blur, without the complexity of layers or masks. Brushes can automatically detect edges in images to allow users to apply or remove effects exactly where they want them. Aperture 3 includes dozens of Adjustment Presets that apply a specific style or look to the entire image with just a click. Custom presets can be created, or explore the techniques of other photographers by importing theirs.
Aperture 3's slideshows allow users to select one of six Apple designed themes or choose your own transitions, background, borders and titles, and even add a custom soundtrack. Slideshows can be exported directly to iTunes to take on the go with an iPhone or iPod touch. Photographs can also be shared as prints, or create custom-designed hardcover books and publish to online photo sharing sites like Facebook and Flickr, right from the application.
Expanding on the Faces and Places features first introduced in iPhoto '09, Aperture 3 is said to make it easier and faster for users to organize large photo libraries. An exhaustive list of the many new features is available on Apple's Web site.
"Millions of people love using iPhoto to organize, edit and share their digital photos," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Aperture 3 is designed for both professionals who edit and manage massive libraries of photos and iPhoto users who want to take their photos further with easy-to-use tools such as Brushes and Adjustment Presets."
Aperture 3 introduces new tools to refine photos, including Brushes for painting image adjustments onto parts of a photo, and Adjustment Presets for applying professional photo effects with just one click. New slideshows let users share their work by weaving together photos, audio, text and HD video.
"Aperture 3 gets it right," said National Geographic photographer, Jim Richardson. "The image editing tools are exactly what I have been asking for, they're so easy to use and give me a level of control that I never even thought possible."
The new software carries a suggested retail price of $199, while the upgrade price runs $99. A 30-day trial is also available. Aperture 3 runs as a 64-bit application on Mac OS X Snow Leopard on Macs with Intel Core 2 Duo processors.
"I chose Aperture because it was the most powerful archiving application around, but it's now an unbelievable imaging tool as well," said Bill Frakes, Sports Illustrated staff photographer. "I am beyond impressed with the massive changes made in Aperture 3."
The latest version allows users to organize large photo libraries with even more flexibility using Projects and the new Faces and Places. Faces uses face detection and recognition to find and organize photos by the people in them. Faces can be viewed across an entire photo library or view just the faces that appear in selected projects. In a new view that speeds up the organization process, Aperture 3 displays faces that have been detected but haven't yet been named.
Places allows users to explore photos based on where they were taken, and like in iPhoto, Places automatically reverse geocodes GPS data into user-friendly locations. In Aperture 3, locations can be assigned by dragging-and-dropping photos onto a map or by using location information from GPS enabled cameras, tracking devices or iPhone photos.
The new Brushes feature allows users to add professional touches to photos by simply painting effects onto the image. Aperture 3 includes 15 Quick Brushes that perform the most popular tasks like Dodge, Burn, Polarize and Blur, without the complexity of layers or masks. Brushes can automatically detect edges in images to allow users to apply or remove effects exactly where they want them. Aperture 3 includes dozens of Adjustment Presets that apply a specific style or look to the entire image with just a click. Custom presets can be created, or explore the techniques of other photographers by importing theirs.
Aperture 3's slideshows allow users to select one of six Apple designed themes or choose your own transitions, background, borders and titles, and even add a custom soundtrack. Slideshows can be exported directly to iTunes to take on the go with an iPhone or iPod touch. Photographs can also be shared as prints, or create custom-designed hardcover books and publish to online photo sharing sites like Facebook and Flickr, right from the application.
Comments
Excellent update!!! And the apple store is down!!!
Down for me as well. Somethings up.
Up next, Final Cut Pro 64-bit.
C
EDIT***
Aperture 2 is still up on Apple.com, too.
Apple on Tuesday released the next major update to its photo editing and management software, with Aperture 3 sporting over 200 new features, including Faces, Places and Brushes.
"Aperture 3 gets it right," said National Geographic photographer, Jim Richardson. "The image editing tools are exactly what I have been asking for, they're so easy to use and give me a level of control that I never even thought possible.…"
"I chose Aperture because it was the most powerful archiving application around, but it's now an unbelievable imaging tool as well," said Bill Frakes, Sports Illustrated staff photographer. "I am beyond impressed with the massive changes made in Aperture 3."
Can't get a better recommendation from the likes of National Geographic photographer, Jim Richardson.*
And Bill Frakes, Sports Illustrated staff photographer. is no slouch either.
*http://photography.nationalgeographi...im-richardson/
I would imagine that it will be available when the store gets back on. That and I'll bet a couple of other major upgrades coming.
The redesigned toolbars, sliders, buttons and larger fonts are welcome.
Finally!!!
Up next, Final Cut Pro 64-bit.
As nice as that would be, I doubt it. They only came out with the latest version a few months ago.
I have an ancient copy of Photoshop that I find a bit of a pain for retouching (usually removing things from photos, or stitching panoramas), and iPhoto for all the basic stuff.
So, what benefit would Aperture 3 give me as a fairly new and inexperienced hobbyist photographer?
It looks pretty good too... doesn't seem to be a noise-ninja-ish feature, which I was hoping for, but I'm intrigued by the brushes. Can't want to get it installed and play.
And those rumors of new Aperture "X" books in the Spring turned out to be true.
This really is the major update I was hoping for. Couldn't be happier!
You can't do anything to an image until you first "import" it, into stupid proprietary DB. Thanks, but no thanks. I like keeping my images on the filesystem, organized in folders with perhaps spotlight comments if I really care. With OS X it's so trivial to get to an image you want to edit anyway.
And when it comes to actual image editing, Lightroom and Photoshop combo is better, but for Nikon dSLRs, CaptureNX still produces the best RAW conversion of any of them.
I wish Apple would make Aperture an alternative to Adobe's Photoshop. I have problems with CS4 crashing on a lean Mac Pro with 10 gigs of ram. Adobe is not the company it was in the 90's when it comes to Mac support and development and someone needs to challenge their monopoly of photo editing, desktop publishing and website authoring software. I will be taking a serious look at Aperture 3.
Not that this will help solve your Photoshop crashing problem, but I'm running Photoshop CS4 on a late-'07 iMac 2.4GHz Core2Duo with 4GB of RAM and a 1.5TB 7200 RPM HDD and it runs flawlessly. OS is the latest version of SL. Obviously, there are other variables, but I don't find anything wrong with the program.
And when it comes to actual image editing, Lightroom and Photoshop combo is better, but for Nikon software CaptureNX still produces the best RAW conversion of any of them.
Has Nikon update Capture NX yet? I haven't been able to use mine since I upgraded to SL. They kept promising December '09 and every time I checked, it hadn't been updated yet.
Basically it's quite useless since it wants to be an image database first and image editing program (and not a good one at it) second.
You can't do anything to an image until you first "import" it, into stupid proprietary DB. Thanks, but no thanks. I like keeping my images on the filesystem, organized in folders with perhaps spotlight comments if I really care. With OS X it's so trivial to get to an image you want to edit anyway.
Same as Lightroom. Or do you not like Lightroom for the same reason? Because professional photogs love this style of product.
As I've recently bought a fancy DSLR (well, technically it's not a DSLR as it's a Micro 4/3rds Lumix GH1), I'm now wondering if I should upgrade iPhoto to Aperture 3.
I have an ancient copy of Photoshop that I find a bit of a pain for retouching (usually removing things from photos, or stitching panoramas), and iPhoto for all the basic stuff.
So, what benefit would Aperture 3 give me as a fairly new and inexperienced hobbyist photographer?
I'll buy you a copy of Aperture 3 if you give me your GH1..
I wish Apple would make Aperture an alternative to Adobe's Photoshop.
Or perhaps buy some company with a competing product and position that as Apple's "photoshop" that way you can use it with iphone, aperture or independently. same for Illustrator